I DARE you to print this. I know you won’t. And when you don’t, I’m going to start posting this on comment boards around the site.

Why? Because I’ve been studying “The Dust” ever since the (I won’t say your, because you are not you) first column. I’ve done a good deal of research: cross-checking, old posts, word comparisons, repetitions, likely suspects. And I’ve finally narrowed your identity down to one person.

The only person you could be.

Upon what do I base this conclusion? Let’s start with undeniable similarities in sense of humor (puerile, forced), vocabulary (self-aggrandizing, flowery), sarcasm (endless, tiresome), political preferences (uniformly and predictably left), music references (the smoking gun), and punctuation (as if you’d never attended school).

Not to mention, which I will, but grudgingly, an enviable intelligence. Although it becomes less enviable as each line reveals a certain childishness, let alone a deeply sublimated inner asshole.

There’s other things. Like the fact that you’ve admitted you’re a forty-ish male with children. Check. Or that you have “a few books out.” Check. That you’re unusually tall. Check. That you are Jewish. Check. Or that you have previous (published) experience answering letters and giving advice. Check. It’s also well known that you’re friends with Brad Listi. Your constant references to “Helmsman Listi” confirm your inside-joke status, and your likely avenue to the job.

You mentioned in your introductory letter that you’ve been “studying this site for quite a while without actually being a part of it.” Well, do you think your not being a part of it has to do with the fact that you launched an unwarranted attack on a TNB member and then were more or less chased away from the community with your tail between your legs?

What better way to “return” than under the guise of an anonymous advice columnist?

I’ve been here too long to put up with this sort of thing. Honesty is an essential commodity for any group of individuals. Historically and philosophically this has always been true. Why shouldn’t it be demanded, here and now?

Oh, and that other evidence-bomb I alluded to before: you’ve already self-published a book called Letters From People Who Hate Me, which, amazingly enough, is full of letters that you answer at length, in the process of giving advice! Oh, and you do it in exactly the same tone, with the identical level of dismissiveness, as J. Angelus Dust! Just a coincidence? I guess it could be, since apparently no one ever read that book. It is, after all, self-published. And was widely ignored. Maybe that’s why you thought no one would notice.

I noticed. And so did a lot of other people. Any number of them have asked me who I thought you were. And I made a few guesses. Until the truth dawned on me.

Like a nine pound hammer.

Even better (or should I say more damning?) here’s a recent quote from The Dust.

“But I understand why that seemingly innocuous sticker filled you with rage. There is a high price to be paid for convenient ideology all along the political spectrum. And those who believe in The Power of The Motto are rarely the ones forced to pony up. Particularly the tweedy Utopian who takes pride in as lazy and self-congratulatory a notion as World Peace. Which, of course, requires the banal idea that the world population is capable of enlightened deliberation on any single issue. Let alone all issues. And that the Zen-appropriated “visualization” of such hubris could magically usher in a global transformation. One that even the giddiest Pollyanna would be forced to admit (preferably while being waterboarded) that no two nations sharing a border have ever mustered throughout human history.”

And here is a quote from your bookWhich Brings Me To You:

“But I am not dismayed by the fact that your rage is inspired by ideologies that are all too convenient. The powers that be are never the ones who pay the check, they always leave you sitting there with the bill while they’re in the bathroom. And tipping is a Utopian ideal, one that usually runs at about 7.5 percent. The idea that any group of people are capable of enlightened deliberation is a fallacy-sheer magical thinking. Pollyanna and Politics have a lot of letters in common for a reason, they are myths that have been spun, unchanged, over centuries of human history.”

Jesus, you’re cannibalizing yourself. At least try a little harder!

And I love how last week, when I threatened to unmask you, (I didn’t send that letter because I thought you’d print it, but I guess you were scared enough to try and make a joke out of it) and then suddenly there you are on the boards, after all these months, with some dumb (fake innocent) poetry review. What a surprise! Just trying to make yourself look like a normal TNB user. Nice try! Not only did you only get one comment, but the post itself almost put TNB into a collective coma of boredom.

Need any more proof? I’ve got lots, but I’ll wrap it up with this:

I found a link to an old issue of Tin House, where, ha-ha, a few years ago you wrote a very positive review of John Fante’s Ask The Dust. Hey, that’d make a really great title for an advice column, don’t you think?

Oh, and I did a little digging in the code. Put my HTML skills to use.

Found an IP address.

You want to deny it? Go ahead.

J. Angelus Dust is really….STEVE ALMOND.

Thanks for the memories, Dust.

I mean Steve.

The Unmasker

Dear The Unmasker

Great follow-up letter, and thanks! That was almost like an episode of Murder, She Wrote. Except with way more commas. And less unintentional shots of Angela Landsbury’s potbelly. Hey, I wonder if this means that Helmsman Listi will start increasing the size of my weekly check?

I’ve talked to you on the phone and the voice I heard sounded just like the voice coming out of the person who looks like your gravatar on the TNB cursing video. So, I can say with 100% certainty that the person I talked to on the phone who looks like the gravatar sounded NOTHING like a 43 year old or an 85 year old.

Unmasker makes a surprisingly compelling, albeit circumstantial case for Steve being the Dust. I’ve tried to suss out the Dust’s true identity based on his writing style and could not match it to any of TNB’s regular contributors. That’s not saying that my process has categorically eliminated anyone- that just means that my skill set didn’t lead me to water.

But here’s the deal with Steve Almond- he’s a brand. He’s a published author who maintains a very public presence with essays at The Rumpus, print and radio interviews, book signings, etc. Anyone in his shoes craves/needs publicity, which leads to getting paid. As a former Masshole who lived in his ‘hood for quite some time, I can assure you that the cost of living can be eye-watering in even the lowest of markets. Writing anonymous freebie columns for TNB is a fairly reckless strategy for supporting a family.

Plus, there’s no way a guy like Steve is going to put in the (likely) considerable number of hours it takes to do a regular column at TNB without attaching his name to it. TNB gets tens of thousands of unique visitors a month- you think a guy like Almond would forego that exposure simply for the titillation of writing covert advice columns for fledgling writers and people with relationship issues?

Nope.

No way is it Almond. If it is, I’ll publish a lengthy appreciation of his works here at TNB, print it out, sign it, and send it to him with a dozen roses and a Whitman’s Sampler.

I re-iterate my position that The Dust is someone who had never contributed to TNB before his first column.

The Dust continues to allude to the fact that he isn’t writing for free. Consider that it’s at least possible he’s paid.

It’s also possible that whoever is behind the Dust’s curtain is doing it for nothing more than the fun of it. If I were in Almond’s (or any reasonably well-known writer’s) position, I totally would.

Gotta be tough for a guy like Almond to just get on any old internet board and give his rollicking, unadulterated opinion without having to worry about his “brand,” don’t you think? It already went badly once.

Or, on the other hand, manufactured controversy & intrigue might be really good for drawing attention to a brand.

I’d like to offer an opinion to the contrary and suggest that ONLY a very well-known writer who didn’t want for work would do this.

The rest of us may be busy flashing our boobies, hoping someone will throw us a set of beads, but that’s because we’re nobodies.

(Provided Almond is somebody. I don’t really know anything about him, so I’m just going from your characterization of his apparently in-demand professional persona.)

I’ve never bought into his implications that he gets paid. I’ve always read that as the same kind of puffery that he employs when referring to “Castle Dust.” But you could be right.

You might also be right about Almond just doing this for the sheer enjoyment of writing and/or the freedom of running with a personality that differs from the one he’s used to promoting.

I remember reading some piece, it might have been by Almond, that talked about Almond bringing copies of his books to signings so he could sell them for cash on the barrel and make some extra money out of the affairs. From that I extrapolate that Almond is a guy who exploits his opportunities and if that’s true, then I would be surprised if he devoted so much time on a regular basis for no recognition. If he got paid, then yeah, I could see it, but otherwise, it wouldn’t add up for me.

I have no opinion on Almond, really, or whether or not the Dust is him (he?).

My point was more that only a writer who already had considerable work or notoriety would agree–could afford–to write anonymously.

With the exception, of course, of folks who would do it for sheer love of secrecy and anonymity. I would. I’ve considered it a number of times but always been reined in.

I mean, there are writers like that. But as you imply, there aren’t too many. Most writers are, reasonably, trying to create and maintain a name for themselves, and for them, writing anonymously would be a total waste of time.

But what happens once you’ve got the name? Maybe you launch an anonymous weekly advice column and spend your Tuesday evenings goofing off.

Though Unmasked should check TNB contributors’ recent movements and events, where known, against The Dust’s recent difficulty keeping his regular response schedule.

The last two weeks, he’s answered later than normal, and more lazily and/or hurriedly than normal, indicating that he’s doing…stuff. That he is indeed a busy individual.

i can see this. because i can see an angry and (for some unknown, but not romantical reason) jilted fabian writing this and i think he is dust as well. the snazzy, happenin’, “let’s take adderol and go dancing” version of dust.

but, if that’s the case, i don’t want to be in that writer’s head. i’d lose track WAY to easy.

Then again, maybe he read that same huffpost article I did, where some bozo committed a hagiography of Ayn Rand, calling her old wrinkled 75 year old self “physically beautiful” which is something you couldn’t accuse her of even in her prime.

It’s an enigma wrapped in butcher paper, thrown through the storefront window.
there just wasn’t the same GRAVITAS in the reply.

When I believed I had figured out who Sugar was, it made me happy and excited. I immediately friended the person on FB and ordered her book. What’s the problem with the Unmasker? Why take the time to do the research if you apparently loathe the writing/writer?

Hmmm. There might have only been one comment on Steve’s poetry piece last week – but it was an awesome comment, I’ll have you know. Besides, we all know comment quantity is not the bloody be all and end all.
As far as who the Dust is: who cares? Is it really that important? If people enjoy it then that really is the only thing that matters.
Lighten up everyone. It’s not that big a deal. Really.

Holy shit, I had no idea this whole controversy was happening. No snoozing allowed at TNB!

I love how Steve Almond doesn’t even have to freaking DO anything to be “controversial” in these parts. That’s pretty hilarious. Maybe people should start commenting on his posts if they’re giving him so much thought?

Look, guys: I’ve been publishing Steve’s work since something like 1997. I published one of his early stories, before he had any books, in Other Voices magazine, and have worked with him sporadically ever since. He just wrote a Foreword for an anthology I’m editing. I read all his work on The Rumpus. One could say (though this won’t get me sent flowers by the Unmasker, who apparently thinks he’s a toad), I am a bit of a “Steve Almond scholar,” if such a thing existed.

Just taking a little break from my corporate strategy retreat here in Aspen and wanted to weigh in.

On the fact front: I never wrote about “Ask the Dust” for Tin House.
The passage from “Which Brings Me to You” was written by my co-author.
I’ve been posting reviews for TNB for the past six months.
I’ve never actually read Ask the Dust.

Still, my powers as a brand are pretty awesome, so maybe I did it in my sleep.

The Unamasker seems like he needs some attention. I’d suggest contacting Mark Sarvas.